Friday, November 12, 2010

the humble pencil.

It's interesting that some of the most complex
subjects can look and feel better
when they are rendered in one humble little
lead pencil?!
I was just thinking this while attempting to
compose this post - a post that was not so
comfortable for me.
Firstly because I am just a little bit shy when it comes to revealing
too too much of myself on this blog, and secondly, because I'm talking
about family and representations of family.
I love my family - don't get me wrong - but I find it difficult
to focus intently on subjects that are so close to home!
Case in point - my father - or papa as he is known to me
and about every friend I know!

These are drawings from a series that I called
Papa and Proust....
At the time I was delving into the old black + white photo album,
trying to understand my father as a child
and the relationship he had with his father, who I never knew...
hence the Proust reference.

That is why the images needed to be in pencil...
Raw and unadorned they needed to have a dreamy, surreal
and emotive quality to them...

If you think this image looks stiff and uncomfortable,
you should see the original photo!
Taken on a Cairo balcony in the 1950s it is if these
men are strangers....
And maybe to a certain extent, we all are to our families ?


I like this close up.
It's soft and yet hard at the same time...
And THAT is why I find the figurative world
so fascinating...
As an artist you can play up so many different
ideas and emotions with one face, one body....

And finally...what would a family posting be without

finally revealing myself to you?!

Here I am...

for the first time on this blog... and it had to be

in a plain lead pencil with no colour...

Hello tiny's!

Its nice to finally meet you...

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